Gender Identity and Sexual Orientation

I live in a community and region of the country where most people have not accepted the lifestyles of gays and lesbians. They vote against their rights and speak impolitely about them. I am one of the few in my community who do not look to religion or personal opinion to say who can marry and who cannot. I am for separating church and state. Most people in Alabama and the South in general are very old fashioned and do not like to change or even entertain the idea that they might be viewing gay and lesbians in the wrong light. I can understand it but it still does not make it right. When you have been raised so long in an area that primarily believes and propagates certain beliefs and ideals, where only a very few people who have had the courage to stand up get ousted, most people go with it and fail to break the cycle. It takes a courageous person to go against the status quo. Although, the more people break the status quo, the easier it is to make change and develop more positively. Understanding this has helped me understand how vital my stances are as I help children develop positive self-images and identities.

   I disagree with those who believe that schools should ban books and materials depicting same-sex couples. I would tell them that I see no harm in it and I am not afraid of showing them to my children. Considering how more and more same-sex couples are getting married and raising families, I would explain to them that in my professional opinion, children would be more prepared from the exposure to the various family orientations. Hopefully, in addition to an anti-bias educator, the children will develop respect and compassion for gay and lesbian people. I would have the same responses to people and/or family members who say that they do not want a gay or transgender caregiver for their child.

It is difficult for people to think differently, especially about things that they hold dearly and for things that have believed for a long time. This will not however hold me back from speaking my mind in the hopes that my words ring true to someone and sparks change in their mind. 

Final Post and Thanks for EDUC 6165 class

                    I want to make a special post for the final week in this Communication and Collaboration class. Some of you I have already had many classes with and have come to know you well. With others, this is our first class together. I have enjoyed EACH of you throughout this course and have learned much from each discussion and blog. You all have nice blogs with wonderful information for the early childhood field. I only have two more classes and then my Capstone in the Spring. I am so excited to be so close!

                     I hope I have made valuable posts and responses and shared useful information for you like you have for me. If I do not have another class with you, I would love to stay connected beyond Walden University. If you would like to add me on Facebook, here is my page: https://www.facebook.com/jmhollingsworth
I am familiar with your names and I would love to have you as a friend :-)

Thank you and hope to see you again and good luck finishing out your classes!

Team Development and Adjourning

As I think about the five stages of team development I think about how the teams I have been involved in worked during each of these stages: forming, storming, norming, performing, and adjourning. The adjourning stage is pretty important because it serves as a chance to learn from any mistakes and evaluate the efforts put forth by the team, good or bad. Our mistakes are what teach us how to be better. Out of all the groups I have participated in, I would say that it was hardest to leave my group of colleagues from my sophomore year in college. After just two years of working together with them we had formed a relationship and all had succeeded at getting our Associates degree. It was also our first experience with college so it was sort of sentimental. We had taught each other so many valuable lessons in our work and took away with much more than we had begun with because of the people we were with.

I will feel the same way with the group of colleagues I have worked with at Walden. Even though we have not met face-to face, I have gotten to know everyone on a personal level thanks to the blogs and discussions. I like the challenges my colleagues have given me and I have more confidence in my communication and networking skills thanks to my classmates. 

Conflict resolutions

I have had my fair share of conflicts in my professional and personal life. I would like to discuss a conflict I am having with my director. I have had many with her and the one I want to discuss is happening currently.

At my school, my new class starts August, 18. I work in the baby room with one other teacher and right now my 7 “babies” have turned into toddlers because is it the end of the school year. They are 13-19 months, walking everywhere and getting into everything. Our ratio is 4 babies to 1 teacher and with 7 kids we have 1 space open. My new class will be brand new babies in the age range of 2 months to 6 months. I have one more week (next week) with my current class of toddlers and then our end of the year party will be next Friday. My director told me that one of my new babies will be coming to my room a week early because her mother needs to go back to work and she cannot wait until August 18^th. This baby is 3 months old. This stresses me out because I foresee numerous possible problems. How am I going to keep the toddlers off of this delicate baby? Will each child still be able to have their needs met with this new baby? Will the baby be able to sleep with so much noise in the classroom a large majority of the day? How can we go outside and play like we do everyday? The list could go on. I expressed these to the director and she told me that it will work out fine and if I have any issues during the week to come to her. She said it is only for a week and 2 days and it should not be that bad. She has helped me pull out new toys, a swing, and a bouncer. I feel as if she has only deflected the issue and not addressed it to my satisfaction. I want a third teacher in my room but she does not want to pay for that to help me and my co-teacher. I feel that all she cares about is bringing money into the preschool without considering quality or the teacher’s opinions. I do not believe this goes against Alabama DHR standards. On rare occasions I have heard of schools that use this style of teaching with having children of all ages on one room instead of the widely used style with children of the same age in one room. So, I guess she is not breaking a law or standard, I am just flustered and dread next week and wish my director would not put me in these situations. So far I have tried to use Magna Gerber’s 3R’s to communicate effectively with my director. I have spoken in a respectful way and in a way that expresses my faith in her decisions.

Is it good for me to push my frustrations down and take this challenge on? Do I need to be more understanding of this parent and my director’s decision?  How do I keep this incident from harming my critical and sometimes nice relationship with my boss? Thank you for any advice!

Communication Evaluations

             This week, I took 3 evaluations on how I communicate. I enjoyed this assignment and am more aware about my communication anxieties, listening skills, and my verbal aggressiveness. Overall and for the most part, my results came out as I anticipated.

The first one was about my communication anxiety and basically how I feel about communicating with others. I generally do not enjoy public speaking but I am fine in small speaking experiences like in a meeting with my co-workers or family members. Basically I understand more how I really need to work on my public speaking anxieties if I ever want to be in a professional position where it is necessary (which is likely). My husband and co-workers also did a good job of pointing out these communication anxieties about me. Only Chris feels that I am more nervous about speaking than what I or anyone else estimated. I appreciate my husband’s honesty and my co-workers faith in me J

The second part was about my listening skills. One of the questions asked if I check the clock often while someone is speaking to me. This was an aspect of listening I had not thought about before. I usually do not look at the clock and rush someone unless I have somewhere important to go. I try to always listen to the people who come to me. I am more aware though of how important it is to be in the moment when someone is confiding or talking to me. Chris and my co-workers assessed me the exact same way I assessed myself on this evaluation. That was interesting! Glad to know they feel I am a good listener like how I imagine.

The last test was about verbal aggressiveness. This was one that my husband and co-workers also guessed the same as me. I have zero verbal aggressiveness. I very rarely try to attack someone’s character to persuade them or anything of that nature. I can’t think of a time that I have. Overall, it looks like I am pretty easy to pin down when it comes to my tendency to attack verbally. Maybe in some cases this type of communicating is what people need to do the right thing but I wouldn’t know because I don’t test it.

Since I enjoyed this assignment so much, Chris did the evaluations on him as well and found out more about himself. After this assignment, I am more conscientious about my communication and listening skills and how they affect my overall, daily communication skills with the children, families, and people in my life.

Effective communication with diverse groups

            The people in my workplace, neighborhood, and family are a diverse group of people. Each day I converse with these various people to get things done and convey vital messages. At work, I interact with young children, African American, Mexican, and Jewish teachers and staff. Some of my family members are married to people who are of African American descent and some family members are atheist. I have older family members and every one of my neighbors in a 4 block radius are from the baby boomers generation.   

            I speak to these people in different ways and in ways that help to convey my messages best. I use the different ranges of my tone of voice often when I speak to children. Children respond to my tone well so I use it according to what I am telling the children. When I want to show that I am disappointed in a child or let them know that they should do something a different way, my tone lowers. When I am playful, celebrating them, or explaining something, my tone is higher. I also use a more cheerful and higher tone of voice when I am speaking to people whom I want something from or are trying to be convincing; including my parents, boss, and husband lol! I don’t necessary speak to people according to the specific group they belong to. I speak to them according to the unique person they are and how they receive messages. Some of the older people in my neighborhood are very different and receive the same messages differently. The women on each side of my house are both over 65 and are widowed. One has an A type personality, is organized, and rarely breaks her routine. You can always find her watering her plants at 5 am and 8 pm each day it doesn’t rain. I love talking to her about home designing tips and decor. My communication style is more conservative with her. I am more of a B type personality and I love learning from her about home organization and other things that help make my life easier since I tend to struggle in that department. My other neighbor is more laid back and goes out on dates all the time. When I talk to her, I know she will laugh at jokes that are a bit unacceptable and I have more fun with her. I have always felt that I am an old soul at heart and relate to the older generation of people better than my own generation.

My friends are my co-workers and family. I relate to my co-teacher in many ways yet we are opposites. We both advocate for young children and seniors. She is African American in her 50’s and has been in the child care business over 3 times longer than I have. I appreciate her knowledge and feel comfortable confiding in her about my personal life. I can be laid back with her and because she understands me I don’t have to explain myself often when I am trying to convey a message. She gets me. She is a lot of fun and speaks up for herself often. I am more quiet and avoid conflict so I like being close to someone who speaks the truth so often without fear of the repercussions or reactions. I learn from her about how to speak up more and get what you want. Most of what I feel safe speaking to her about I do not feel safe speaking to my boss about. My boss is more serious and does not chit-chat much. I am more reserved and professional around her. Most of our conversations are during meetings and through emails about work. When I am with my aunts, uncles, and parents, my behavior and communication style is a little more reserved and respectful of their expectations of me. When I am with my cousins, we cut up a little more and anything goes. I speak more professionally to my colleagues and teachers. More of my passions and goals about myself, child care, and the early childhood field come out in my communications with my teachers and classmates. I make sure to write more professional and formal emails when writing to them. These conversations include more vital information and my choice of communication is crucial to conveying the message I wish to get across. My classmates, co-workers and teachers often use words that relate to early childhood that no other people in my life know about or use.

I use words and styles of communicating differently depending on the people I am communicating with. This can be complicated and I will always be learning about how to do this skillfully. Here are some strategies I use to communicate effectively with different people:

1.      Pay close attention to behavior and non-verbal cues. How often are people making eye-contact and what do they do with their arms?  If someone is not making eye contact with you then they are telling you they are not interested in what you have to say. If they are crossing their arms then they are showing that they are protecting themselves and are more reserved to the conversation or group of people they are around.

2.      Be knowledgeable of yourself and your preferred style of communicating. Ask yourself if your tendency to speak the truth no matter what is good during an introduction meeting with the new families in your classroom. While I am meeting my new families during open house, I make sure to let my usually more reserved personality come out more so they can get to know me better.

3.      Research any information about the people you are about to have crucial conversations with so you are best prepared. This helps to get through some of those initial basic misunderstandings one may have about a certain group so that the more important messages get addressed.

Anyone use these strategies already or have improvements? Do you think these are truly effective for you?

Body Language

                   In this blog post, I am going to share my thoughts on body language. I am going to watch a show that I am not familiar with while it is muted and then discuss my thoughts on how they used body language and eye contact to communicate. I will try to guess what their conversations were about based on only what I saw from them.

                  I watched the show The Tudors and had only watched a few episodes before I did this assignment. I am familiar with this history but do not know much about King Henry’s wives. It was very interesting looking at the characters movements while the volume was muted. The show I watched was about halfway through the series. This episode showed their wedding so I know that they are husband and wife in this episode. King Henry and his Queen Anne of Cleves are in this episode the most. It is obvious through the kings’ facial expressions that he does not like his new wife. He looks mad at times and disinterested in her. Anne’s facial expressions and shaking hands show that she is very nervous and made me think that she is scared of him. Maybe she thinks he will kill her. Their marriage looks very strained and full of discontentment. The King also bangs a table as he is talking to a room full of men showing anger towards them it looks like. The men look down and do make much eye contact with the King.

                    For the second part of this assignment I watched the show with the volume on and got clarity on my assumptions. My assumptions were mostly correct.  They were very unhappy with each other. The King was not attracted to her for many reasons. She was too uneducated about him to know how to make him happy so that explains her nervousness. She was German and they only married to get political favor. He was lied to about how happy he would be with her and he lashes out at his assistants. I’m sure that my assumptions would have been more correct had I been more familiar with this show and its history.